If you imagine a 50-inch, 250-pound bronze statue of a pretty young girl in a dress couldn't possibly cause offence or controversy within the art world and amongst feminist critics, then think again ... For Fearless Girl (2017), by Kristen Visbal, has done both. And it has particularly irritated the artist Alex Gardega, as we will discuss in the third part of this post.
Commissioned by the New York investment firm State Street Global Advisors, it was installed on March 7, 2017, at Bowling Green in the Financial District of Manhattan, directly facing Arturo Di Modica's famous Charging Bull. If it was intended primarily to promote an index fund made up of companies that have a higher percentage of women in senior leadership roles than is the norm, it was also meant to mark International Women's Day.
Instructed to ensure the statue depicted a girl looking courageous and proud - with her chin up and hands on hips - Visbal nevertheless carefully avoided any hint of wilful belligerence by keeping the facial features full of the soft-loveliness of a Latina child.
Commissioned by the New York investment firm State Street Global Advisors, it was installed on March 7, 2017, at Bowling Green in the Financial District of Manhattan, directly facing Arturo Di Modica's famous Charging Bull. If it was intended primarily to promote an index fund made up of companies that have a higher percentage of women in senior leadership roles than is the norm, it was also meant to mark International Women's Day.
Instructed to ensure the statue depicted a girl looking courageous and proud - with her chin up and hands on hips - Visbal nevertheless carefully avoided any hint of wilful belligerence by keeping the facial features full of the soft-loveliness of a Latina child.
Originally given just a one-week City Hall permit, the sculpture is now due to remain in place until the end of February 2018. A petition asking for the work to be granted a permanent spot gathered over 2,500 signatures in its first 48 hours. However, despite capturing many hearts, the work is by no means universally loved ...
Some, for example, have criticized it as an example of corporate feminism that violates the very principles of the latter as movement concerned with social justice and radical political change. Others have said that the work reinforces the idea that empowerment requires women to remain cute and girly; they can act strong, but mustn't have real muscles.
As for Signore Di Modica, he has demanded that the Fearless Girl be removed, arguing that it exploits his work for purely commercial purposes whilst also changing public perceptions of his Charging Bull. Dismissing Visbal's piece as an advertising gimmick lacking artistic integrity, Di Modica has apparently instructed his lawyers to take action against the city officials who allowed it to be installed.
This, I have to say, is a bit rich: it's worth recalling that Di Modica himself placed his work in a public space, uninvited and without permission, thereby altering the environment in which it stood. So he can hardly complain when someone else does the same.
More, are we really expected to swallow all his bullshit about the purity and integrity of his work - the product of individual male genius - in contrast to the compromised corporate commercialism of Fearless Girl that resulted from the collaborative effort of women working in different professional areas? I think not ...
To his credit, the Mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, has tweeted his support for Visbal's statue, saying: "Men who don't like women taking up space are exactly why we need the Fearless Girl." Such men, it seems, include Alex Gardega, who provided an unpleasant twist to this tale of two sculptures by placing a small work of his own entitled Pissing Pug besides the leg of the Fearless Girl ...
Click here to read part one of this post: The Charging Bull.
Click here to read part three of this post: The Pissing Pug.
Click here to read part three of this post: The Pissing Pug.
